Helium filled balloons are very popular throughout much of the world for festive occasions such as birthday parties or for celebrations of milestone events such as graduations from school. They are mostly purchased in stores in the inflated condition. This means that it is cumbersome to transport them home, as in a car, especially when several balloons are involved. It also complicates the effort to achieve surprise in the presentation of the balloon to the recipient. It is possible to rent tanks of helium or to even purchase small tanks of helium for inflation of balloons at home but this is cumbersome and most consumers are not willing to go to the trouble of doing this. Prior to the invention disclosed herein, others have suggested devices wherein balloons are automatically inflated with compressed gas from associated containers. One of the more recent disclosures, U.S. Pat. No. 5,083,771 to Tyner, describes a novelty item comprising an inflatable object and a container adapted to contain said inflatable object in a deflated state and an inflation means adapted to act on said inflatable object for causing said inflatable object to rapidly expand beyond the bounds of the container. Dicarlo, however, unlike the present invention, teaches the criticality of a valve means coupled directly to a high pressure gas container, so that the valve can rapidly delivery high pressure gas for said rapid expansion.
Other disclosures dealing with the concept of novelty balloons, automatically inflating balloon devices, and valves designed for such use include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,108,337; 5,049,106, 5,009,624; 4,917,646; 4,903,958; 4,813,902, 4,391,063; 4,219,819; 4,135,325; 3,754,731; and 3,310,024.
These prior patents do not suggest the idea of the present invention, namely providing a concealed deflated object which is expanded through the use of a self-contained and self-regulating gas filling valve means construction, which delivers the gas first from a high pressure cylinder into a low pressure chamber, and then into the balloon.
The advantages of a self-contained and self-regulating gas filling valve means also allows for (unlike the prior art mechanisms) the use of a relatively small sized balloon (expanded size of 10 inches or less) of relatively light-weight material (such as polypropylene film). Note that a self-contained balloon helium system, in order to be saleable to the public at a reasonable price, is limited to a relatively small amount of helium (since the container for the high pressure helium represents the principal cost and is proportional to the amount of helium contained). A small amount of helium implies a small balloon. If a small balloon is to float, it must be much lighter than the nylon materials used in the so-called Mylar (and larger sized) balloons presently sold (latex is totally too heavy). Light materials are very weak compared to the nylon type materials commonly used in larger balloons. Rapid expansion, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,903,958 and 5,083,771, puts too much stress on the balloon neck of weak material. Thus, the high-pressure delivery described in the '958 and '771 disclosures, unlike the present invention, have not proved able to provide a truly commercially successful small-sized floating helium balloon.
Thus, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a new novelty item in which a balloon of a selected configuration is concealed and inflated slowly by a controlled gas flow which throttles the flow of said gas into the balloon thereby minimizing the possibility that the balloon might burst, or be broken away, from the valve filling mechanism.